To this period must belong also A true report of three Straunge Witches, lately found at Newnham Regis, mentioned by Hazlitt (Handbook, p. 230). I have not seen it; but the printer is given as "J. Charlewood," and Charlewood printed between 1562 and 1593. The Stationers' Registers, 1570-1587 (London; Shakespeare Soc., 1849), II, 32, mention also the licensing in 1577 of The Booke of Witches—whatever that may have been.
Among pamphlets dealing with affairs nearly related to witchcraft may be mentioned the following:
A short treatise declaringe the detestable wickednesse of magicall sciences, as Necromancie, Coniuration of Spirites, Curiouse Astrologie and such lyke.... Made by Francis Coxe. [London, 1561.] Black letter. Coxe had been pardoned by the Queen.
The Examination of John Walsh, before Master Thomas Williams, Commissary to the Reverend father in God, William, bishop of Excester, upon certayne Interrogatories touchyng Wytch-crafte and Sorcerye, in the presence of divers gentlemen and others, the XX of August, 1566. 1566. Black letter. John Ashton (The Devil in Britain and America, London, 1896, p. 202) has called this the "earliest English printed book on witchcraft pure and simple"; but it did not deal with witches and it was preceded by the first Chelmsford pamphlet.
The discloysing of a late counterfeyted possession by the devyl in two maydens within the Citie of London. [1574.] Black letter. The case is that of Agnes Bridges and Rachel Pinder, mentioned above (pp. 59, 351).
The Wonderfull Worke of God shewed upon a Chylde, whose name is William Withers, being in the Towne of Walsam ... Suffolk, who, being Eleven Yeeres of age, laye in a Traunce the Space of Tenne Days ... and hath continued the Space of Three Weeks, London, 1581. Written by John Phillips. This pamphlet is mentioned by Sidney Lee in his article on John Phillips in the Dict. Nat. Biog.
A Most Wicked worke of a Wretched Witch (the like whereof none can record these manie yeares in England) wrought on the Person of one Richard Burt, servant to Maister Edling of Woodhall in the Parrish of Pinner in the Countie of Myddlesex, a myle beyond Harrow. Latelie committed in March last, An. 1592 and newly recognized acording to the truth. By G. B. maister of Artes. [London, 1593.] See Hazlitt, Collections and Notes, 1867-1877. The pamphlet may be found in the library of Lambeth Palace. The story is a curious one; no action seems to have been taken.
A defensative against the poyson of supposed prophecies, not hitherto confuted by the penne of any man; which being eyther uppon the warrant and authority of old paynted bookes, expositions of dreames, oracles, revelations, invocations of damned spirits ... have been causes of great disorder in the commonwealth and chiefly among the simple and unlearned people. Henry Howard, afterwards Earl of Northampton, was the author of this "defensative." It appeared about 1581-1583, and was revised and reissued in 1621.
Three Elizabethan ballads on witches are noted by Hazlitt, Bibliographical Collections and Notes, 2d series (London, 1882): A warnynge to wytches, published in 1585, The scratchinge of the wytches, published in 1579, and A lamentable songe of Three Wytches of Warbos, and executed at Huntingdon, published in 1593. Already in 1562-3 "a boke intituled A poosye in forme of a visyon, agaynste wytche Crafte, and Sosyrye," written "in myter" by John Hall, had been published (Stationers' Registers, 1557-1570, p. 78).
Some notion of the first step in the Elizabethan procedure against a witch may be gathered from the specimens of "indictments" given in the old formula book of William West, Simboleography (pt. ii, first printed in 1594). Three specimens are given; two are of indictments "For killing a man by witchcraft upon the statute of Anno 5. of the Queene," the third is "For bewitching a Horse, whereby he wasted and became worse." As the documents in such bodies of models are usually genuine papers with only a suppression of the names, it is probable that the dates assigned to the indictments noted—the 34th and 35th years of Elizabeth—are the true ones, and that the initials given, "S. B. de C. in comit. H. vidua," "Marg' L. de A. in com' E. Spinster," and "Sara B. de C. in comitatu Eb. vidua," are those of the actual culprits and of their residences. Yorkshire is clearly one of the counties meant. It was, moreover, West's own county.